


Hold Fast

by Whisky (whiskyrunner)



Series: Stiffen the Sinews [2]
Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 21:36:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskyrunner/pseuds/Whisky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bane knows John well enough to know when he's not completely at ease. Maybe he finds the idea of Bane in Gotham as strange as Bane himself does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold Fast

**Author's Note:**

> I liked the ending of Stiffen because it was so open. You could superimpose your own headcanon for whatever happened next. But I had so many tumblr peeps asking me what happened that I finally shared my own headcanon. This is the scenario I usually come back to:
> 
>  _Bane is taken in by the League and they patch him up. John stays to help take care of him for a while. Barsad stays long enough to make sure Bane is going to be okay, then leaves to find his family (but he’ll be back). Eventually John wants to go home to Gotham. Bane is heartbroken, because he knows he couldn’t handle living in America, and he wants to be with Talia, but he can’t convince John to stay. The League take Bane in even though he freaks pretty much everyone out and no one is keen to train with him. John goes home. I imagine he visits at least once a year. It’s not much, but Bane is always so fucking happy to see him that it messes with John’s heart, so they virtually forget other people exist for as long as they’re together. Then John goes home again, and Bane goes back to constantly training alone and working out to forget the pain of John leaving._ And then, of course, he decides to visit John.

Bane likes the plane. He doesn't understand it, but perhaps that's for the best. He's not afraid for a minute during the ten-hour long flight.

No; the fear doesn't start until he actually arrives in Gotham City.

When John used to talk about Gotham, it was always with reverence and affection. He painted lush pictures in Bane's mind. Glittering towers of glass and steel. A sea of vibrant umbrellas to shield you when it rained. And at night, golden lights dappling the streets and the buildings, so it was like looking into a bed of stars.

Gotham is not at all like that.

Gotham is _loud_. There's the roaring of airplanes overhead, the blaring of cars, rumbling of buses, hisses and squeaks as the latter come to a stop. In the distance there's more blaring, and a faint, ululating siren. And everyone is talking. No one is silent. Bafflingly, most of them are talking into phones, tiny handheld devices that he recognizes from descriptions. Only a few are talking to each other.

And they all talk the same way: loud, so as to be heard over the cacophony, and fast. Their words swirl together. He can't make sense of it.

He stands by a pillar, watching yellow cars stream past. He never imagined this many cars, when John talked about Gotham. Of course, he never accounted for this many people. And at least half of them women—he hadn't noticed right away. Some of them are in men's dress.

A short man talking to his telephone hurries past, bumping Bane's arm. He doesn't even apologize. In another second, he's gone.

Paralyzed by the noise, bewildered by this surreal new culture, Bane stands there and quietly misses home.

“Hey!”

Through the tumult, a familiar voice. Bane looks around. Too many people—he overlooks John twice before his gaze lands on the man strolling toward him, hands in his pockets. John is smiling, but his shoulders are slightly hunched. Bane knows him well enough to know when he's not completely at ease. Maybe he finds the idea of Bane in Gotham as strange as Bane himself does.

John stops a very short distance away, looking at him directly in the face. For the first time in a long time, Bane remembers how he was when he first arrived in the pit—young and beautiful and dangerously bold, looking the other men in the eyes—and his lips pull into a fond, painful smile under the mask.

“How was the flight?” John asks.

“Uneventful,” Bane replies.

John just laughs. “Come on,” he says. “It's cold. I got a cab waiting.”

The cab is a yellow car. Bane stubbornly refuses to put his bag in the back compartment, where he can't even see it, so the driver just throws up his hands and gets back in the front seat. Bane's bag stays on his lap. John, sitting next to him, is jittery before they've even left. When the doors _clunk_ shut, all the noise outside is muted.

“So—what do you think?” John asks when the car has been moving for a while.

“Of what?”

John's nibbling at one of his nails. He puts his hand down in his lap. “Of Gotham.”

“It's ...” Bane considers. “Loud.”

John laughs again. “Yeah. I actually thought so too, you know, when I first got back, but when you live here, you learn to phase it out. Godzilla and Mothra could start a fight outside my building and I'd probably sleep through it.”

This John laughs too much, and he talks the way the other people do—too fast. Bane has to listen closely, and he's still not sure he understands this fully. Language in the pit is simple. If you speak English, you can communicate with the other English speakers. But outside the pit, everyone has their own English, their own terms for things, their own accents. There are accents in the pit, too, of course; but up here, no one seems to account for this. They just talk fast and expect to be understood.

“Your scarf's nice,” John says, breaking the silence. It doesn't sound like a forced effort now. It sounds more like John.

“Talia made it.”

“It hides the mask pretty good.”

Bane just shrugs. He'd gotten odd looks on the plane, that was all.

John's nibbling his nail again. He puts his hand down. Then he turns to face Bane, suddenly, and he flashes him a quick smile.

“I'm glad you're here.”

Bane doesn't know what to say. So he doesn't say anything.

 

*  
John takes him to a museum, once they've dropped Bane's bag off at his home. Bane doesn't enter the apartment—he stands outside while John simply slings the bag inside and shuts the door and says, “Let's go.”

He likes the museum immediately. It's quiet. When they walk through the exhibits, he likes it even more. So much history—so much strangeness. He likes the history of war exhibits best. Plates of armour and weaponry from different countries and centuries, some simple and practical, others ornate. Each exhibit tells a story. John follows patiently while he reads every single placard.

“I thought you'd like this place,” he says. “You're such a nerd.”

Bane doesn't know what that is and doesn't care. They spend hours at the museum. Just before they leave, John abandons him briefly and returns with a bag full of books. They're all related to various wars in history.

“This place is wonderful,” Bane says. He looks around and adds slowly, “People here have access to so much knowledge... They must know everything.”

“Nah.” John shuffles his feet a bit. “People don't really have time to learn all this stuff anymore, or they're just not really interested.” He blinks up at Bane. “You're smarter than almost anyone in Gotham, trust me.”

Of course, he goes right to the heart of Bane's worry and reassures him. For a moment Bane had felt, standing in this magnificent place while children wandered past him, like a dumb fool with pathetically scant knowledge of the world he inhabits. But John says he is smart. And besides, he knows a little more now than he did before.

They walk to John's building, and this time Bane is allowed to enter. He's surprised at how big it is, though John says, “It's a little small, I know.” It has a hallway and a kitchen and a bedroom and bathroom and an open space where John's television and couch are. It is, in short, a lot bigger than a prison cell.

He takes the scarf off and sees John's eyes lingering on the mask. It's not a complicated design, two straps that fit around his head and meet at the back, a black grate to fit over his nose and mouth and feed chemicals in. The canisters on either side of the grate are small.

He hates it. He looks like a dog in a muzzle. It's ugly, fearsome.

John turns away and says, “I'll order some food.”

The food arrives shortly and John goes downstairs to get it. He comes back up with greasy boxes and dumps them on the kitchen table.

“Chicken wings,” he says triumphantly. “Just like I promised.”

John likes chicken. Bane has a sudden memory of himself, getting up early as he always did on a supply drop day, waiting and watching and hoping there might be chickens with this drop, just to see John smile. Now there is chicken here and it's already cooked and prepared, no mess or struggle. That's how it works here. How meagre Bane's offerings must have seemed back in the pit. Some days it had seemed the most important thing in the world, to bring chicken back to the cell for John. Had John been comparing to this, all the while? Thinking how inadequate it all seemed, compared to the richness he was used to?

John is smiling, waiting hopefully for Bane to speak. Bane says, “I'm not hungry.”

John's smile fades. Then his expression turns dark. “I'll leave the room if you're just touchy about taking the mask off.”

“I'm not,” Bane lies. “I'm not hungry.”

“Fine.” John sits. “I'll save some for tomorrow for you.”

Bane watches him eat, enchanted by the way John's teeth shred meat from the bones, the way he licks sauce off his lips. His mouth is lovely. He ducks his head self-consciously and mumbles, “Quit staring.”

“You are beautiful,” Bane tells him.

“Yeah? With honey garlic sauce all over my face?” But John is smiling again. “Whatever you say, man.”

Bane loves to see him smile.

There is a movie afterward, a ritual for them. John always brings him an animated movie. Tonight it is _Lilo and Stitch_ , which hits strangely close to home once or twice. John says that Hawaii is part of America, which Bane knew already, but he doesn't say so. He wants dearly to go there, though he doesn't like the look of all that water, since he can't swim. John says they could stay on the beach.

“How's Talia?” John asks, when the movie is finished and he's flicking through different television channels.

“She is well,” Bane says. “Her tutor says she is learning advanced subjects.” Bane always attends Talia's lessons, firstly to protect her should her tutor get any ideas, and secondly for his own education. So he knows firsthand just how clever Talia is. John nods.

“How's Barsad?” he asks, in a lower tone. Bane shrugs.

“No different since you saw him last.”

John switches off the TV. “Let's go to bed,” he says.

Bane stands when John does, apprehensive. “If you would prefer me to sleep on the floor ...”

He doesn't know how it is on John's territory. At the temple they share a bed, just like in the prison, but here it might be different. John might be less willing to let Bane into his own bed, where he sleeps every night. But John barely blinks.

“I wouldn't.”

Bane follows him mutely to the bedroom. John's bed is smaller than Bane's, back at the temple, but it will fit them both. John disappears into his bathroom, and Bane hears running water; he emerges in his sleep-clothes and crawls into bed while Bane changes.

Bane climbs into the bed cautiously. John's hand hovers near the bedside lamp.

“Do you mind—”

“No,” Bane says, and John draws his hand away, relieved. Bane prefers the dark; but John likes there to be light when he sleeps.

He closes his eyes against the glow, then rolls over, facing away from John and the light.

 

*  
Bane sleeps badly that night. First the noise from outside keeps him up. (It's night—do people in Gotham not sleep? The sounds of sirens and traffic and shouting on the streets are nonstop.) Then, whenever he opens his eyes, the light from the lamp disturbs him. Even when he can tune these things out, he's unable to relax, afraid of having a nightmare in front of John. At his side, John has fallen into a restless sleep. Every time Bane looks over, John's brow is furrowed and his hands are clenching, fingers twitching against the sheets.

Early in the morning Bane slips into an uneasy sleep. He wakes up an hour later with an erection. He's moved much closer to John. He pulls himself away slowly, perturbed at his lack of self-control.

His stomach groans, still empty. He needs food. Carefully, he moves further away from John, then out of bed altogether. John slumbers on, and Bane pads out of the bedroom.

He opens the fridge like he saw John do when he wanted something to eat, and doesn't find much to choose from. He opens up the box the chicken wings came in and sees a dozen still there. For a moment he considers them, but the coating makes them appear greasy, as if they've been slathered with lard, and he doesn't know that he'll like it. He locates an apple, pulls that out, and shuts the fridge door. It takes both hands to undo the clasp at the side of the mask. Then he's peeling it off, and he's able to pick up the apple and bite into it. His stomach groans again, this time in appreciation.

While he takes bites from the apple, he looks around the kitchen a little more. There are a lot of cupboards. He opens one up, then another, and is surprised: they are both packed full of boxes and cans.

He opens every cupboard up and gazes around him in amazement. Every cupboard is the same: top to bottom, full of food. More than one person could eat, surely. More than half a supply drop to the pit. But why? Why would John stock so much food in his home? He'll never go through all of this, on his own.

He finds a package of pita bread when he's finished with the apple, and he eats five of those in a row. He replaces the package gently. It comes to him as he's shutting each cupboard door: John hoards food because he is afraid to starve.

A sharp pang sweeps over Bane. He takes a deep breath and reminds himself, he is not the one who condemned John to the pit. He's not the one who cut off food for several months. It isn't his fault that any of this happened to John; so why does it feel like it is?

He eats another apple, then drains several glasses of water. He can't find any straws in John's cupboard, so he has to drink the normal way, wincing when he can't hold the water in his mouth and it dribbles down his shirt. He drinks a lot because he doesn't know when he'll be able to drink by himself again.

Finally sated, he puts the mask back on with difficulty (his hands are already cold and tingling) and returns to bed. For a minute he watches John, whose body is curled into the light from the lamp, his brow scrunched just a little bit. Bane pushes the hair off his face and John stirs, his eyes cracking open.

“Hey,” he mumbles thickly.

“I was hungry,” Bane says.

John squints against the light and smiles up at him, rumpled and sleepy. “Chicken wings?”

“No.”

“Oh well.” John sighs, holds an arm out. “C'mere, big guy.”

Bane responds immediately, wrapping an arm around John's chest and pulling them both flush. He longs to nuzzle into John's hair, short as it is, but the mask prevents him, so he must settle for tucking John very firmly into his body. His relief at being given this permission fills his whole chest and John laughs, a real laugh now, too sleepy for pretenses.

“This bed's big enough that we don't have to spoon, you know.”

“Do you want me to stop?” Bane growls, holding him tighter.

John puts his head down on the pillow. “Nah. No way.”

Bane's love for him is immense, drowning all other thoughts and feelings for the rest of the night. He sleeps without nightmares, and he thinks John does, too.

 

*  
Over the next two weeks John takes Bane to all his favourite places in Gotham. He even takes Bane to the building where he works, though they don't go inside. On the second day he takes Bane to a dazzling store full of food and asks what Bane likes; Bane just shrugs, overwhelmed at the options, so John buys him things like flatbread and iced tea—familiar, plain things that aren't too sweet. At one point John says, “Straws! I'm so sorry, I forgot you need straws.” And he pulls a box of them off a shelf. Everything they need is right here.

John pays for it all. The woman behind the counter is dressed in men's clothing, and she looks Bane in the eyes, then looks at his scarf, before she begins to put everything in bags. It makes Bane deeply uncomfortable, but John doesn't even notice.

People keep staring at Bane's scarf, though only when they're indoors. When they're outside, nobody looks twice at the scarf. Gotham remains much too bright for him, too loud. It gives him a headache. When they walk on the streets, the volume of visual and aural stimulus is overwhelming. When a glittering bus rattles past them with a particularly loud roar, he wants to duck out of sight, clamp his eyes shut and put his hands over his ears, like a child.

John keeps watching him, darting glances at him. Sometimes his hand jerks like he wants to grab Bane's hand, but isn't sure how he'll be met. Early in the week, he ducks into a small shop and comes out with a pair of sunglasses. When Bane puts them on, everything becomes easier to look at; the glare of light off windows is no longer so stabbing. He feels more hidden and protected. He wears the sunglasses inside, as well, unless they're in John's home; and it gets him more strange looks, but his headache goes away.

They go to the museum two more times. John is patient. He indulges Bane's interest in this and in the botanical gardens, where they spend an entire afternoon. He doesn't say anything about the fact that Bane eats only after he goes to bed. And when Bane joins him in bed, they lie close together and keep each other's bad dreams at bay.

But they don't kiss. They barely even touch. Bane isn't sure that he's allowed.

 

*  
During the second week, John has to go to work. Bane sits on the bed and watches him get ready, dressing in his crisp blue and black clothes.

“Feel free to go out,” John says, knotting his tie in the mirror. “I left some money and a key to the apartment in the kitchen for you. You can go back to the museum. Go anywhere you want. I'll be home at three.”

Bane stays inside, though. He's started reading the books that John has bought him. He spends some time on the couch with them; then he watches the pigeons outside for a bit, then he knits. This is how he passes several lazy days in a row. John is home in the afternoon with stories about work and coworkers and petty criminals, and Bane listens and nods and soaks him in, trying to absorb as much of John as he possibly can before he has to leave at the end of the week.

He continues to follow John everywhere, including to the laundry room in the building, where a bunch of noisy machines are set up. John sorts his clothes into one machine and says, “I could've done this alone, you know.”

He sounds amused rather than irritated, so Bane just ruffles his hair and smiles at the swat on the arm he gets in return.

“Your hair is too short,” he says, running his fingers through John's hair. “Grow it.”

“I'll get right on that.” John ducks out from under his hand. “My boss might not be too impressed, though; he doesn't find me as pretty as you do.”

“Good.”

John grins at him lopsidedly.

A young woman enters the room and Bane automatically drifts toward the corner, going quiet. She beams when she sees John.

“John, hi!”

“Hey, Colby,” John replies. She bounds up to the machine next to his, carrying a basket of clothes. Finding her at his side, John casts around in surprise to look for Bane.

“Laundry day, huh?” the girl chirps.

“Yeah. Colby, this is my friend Bane,” John says. “He's visiting from ... overseas.”

She turns to look at Bane and startles slightly, giving a little “Oh!” when she sees him. Behind her, Bane sees John sigh and lower his head.

The girl recovers and approaches Bane, holding out a hand. “Um, nice to meet you.”

Bane looks at her hand blankly. Then he catches John's eye. John's doing something with his own hands, lining them up and lifting them up and down. Bane doesn't want to touch her, but, understanding, he takes the girl's hand very gently and shakes it. She's very soft and he can't quite look at her. He wishes John hadn't called attention to him. He can tell she wishes the same thing. She's smiling, though her eyes are fixed on the mask; and once he lets go, she returns quickly to John's side.

“So how's work going?” She giggles. “Arrest any bad guys today?”

John makes small talk with her, conversing smoothly and easily, the way Bane just doesn't know how with women—or, really, anyone. She natters so swiftly that Bane can't keep up; he doesn't even know what they're talking about. John makes her laugh. When she makes John laugh, Bane feels a very palpable urge to hit something.

“Does your friend, um, speak English?” he hears her ask, her voice lower and a little slower, so that he understands. John scratches at his ear.

“Yeah, he does.”

“Oh, John, is he from ...?”

“He helped me out when I was in trouble,” John says flatly. The girl doesn't ask any more questions about Bane.

John keeps talking to her even after his clothes are put away and the machine is rumbling. Bane is forced to wait until John says goodbye and slips away. Her eyes follow Bane uneasily.

John and Bane enter the elevator together.

“Where does she think I am from?” Bane asks.

John just stares straight ahead at the panel of buttons for a minute. Then he says, “I dunno. Prison, maybe.”

“She knows you were in prison?”

“Everyone knows I was in prison, Bane.”

He sounds so uncharacteristically bitter that Bane doesn't speak again until they're in the hall outside John's apartment.

“What is your relationship with her?”

John fumbles with his keys, not looking at Bane. “I don't know. We had dinner once.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we had dinner.”

John shoves the apartment door open, breathing harder. Bane can tell that John is growing angry, but he doesn't know why. Once they're in the apartment, John wheels to face him. He seems to be expecting a fight: his expression softens slightly when he looks at Bane.

“It means we went to a restaurant and ate a meal together and I paid and at the end of the night I told her I wasn't sure I was ready for a relationship, and she said okay. Okay?”

“And did you sleep with her?” Bane asks.

John's mouth falls open momentarily. Voice rising, he says, “How's that your business?”

“I'm—” Bane starts. He stops himself right away, but too late.

“You're what?” John is almost yelling. Bane hates himself. “My master? My husband? What are you, Bane? We're not in the pit anymore!”

“Don't be upset,” Bane says.

John doesn't answer, just drags a hand through his hair repeatedly and paces back and forth a few times. Bane watches him, hurting and wanting, silent.

“What are we doing, Bane?” John says finally, still pacing. “You're with the League ... you hate it here.”

“I like being with you.”

“You hate Gotham,” John repeats. He stops pacing and looks across at Bane. “Some days ... I swear you wish we were still back there.”

“Is that wrong?” Bane demands.

John's hands drop to his side. He goes very quiet.

“You're joking.”

Bane doesn't know what to say. The pit was his home. He was happy there, most of the time. And John had felt safest tucked right into Bane; had allowed Bane to touch him and warm him...

“You used to kiss me,” he says finally.

John's face tightens, then goes abruptly slack. The aggression leaves him.

“You don't even take your mask off.”

“Not to eat,” Bane growls.

John just keeps looking at him like he doesn't know what to say. So Bane shoulders past him, goes into the bedroom and shuts the door. He wants to be alone.

 

*  
In the morning John is still there.

“You're still here,” Bane observes.

“I called in sick to work.” John is watching him from the foot of the bed, somewhat nervously, fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt. “Taking a long weekend.”

“I see.” Bane puts his head back down on the pillow. John had come to bed late, turned on his lamp and tucked himself under the sheets without a word to Bane.

John watches him a moment longer. At last, he says, “I'm getting in the shower.”

Bane hears him pad out of the room. He hears the sound of running water.

He rolls over. The bathroom door is open.

He's not sure what this means. Does John ... actually intend him to follow? Was it a mistake? No; John would not leave the door open by accident. What does he want Bane to do?

Bane gets up and approaches the open door, but his nerve fails him and he falls back. He does this several more times, too hesitant to actually enter the bathroom. He can hear water pattering away and he can almost picture John in there, but he isn't sure, he doesn't know if that's a mental image he is allowed to indulge in...

Perhaps ten minutes pass before he finally steps into the doorway. Steam hangs in the air, fogging the mirror. John is standing under the spray of water with his back against the tiled wall, propping himself up on one elbow. His other arm is behind him, his hand disappearing between his legs. His back is bowed off the wall, his face flushed; he rotates his arm steadily, leaving Bane in no doubt as to what he's doing with his fingers. Damp already clings to Bane's clothes, but his mouth feels as dry as the Sahara.

John cracks one eye open and straightens up. “I was starting to think you wouldn't join me,” he says.

Bane sidles inside and moves closer, wanting to enjoy the sight. John laughs, pushing his wet hair out of his face.

“Come on in.”

Bane knows showers. They have them at the League. A cold shower is for cleansing, scrubbing away the day's sweat, followed by a hot bath for relaxation. Here in Gotham John only showers, even though he's standing in a bath tub, but the water is hot and alluring—not nearly as much as John himself. Bane longs to move closer, to touch as much as he likes; but he hesitates.

John comes closer. Involuntarily Bane's gaze drops between his legs, just for a moment. His cock is partially hard against his thigh.

“Take your clothes off,” John says patiently.

Bane finds his hands going to his shirt; he pulls it off over his head. When it's off John is still gazing at him, his dark eyes warm and steady. He reaches over to help push Bane's pants down off his hips. They slide the rest of the way and Bane is left standing there, as nude as John, feeling slightly foolish. But John is smiling, taking his hand, pulling him in—

Bane steps into the shower and is at once aware of how very close they are. John touches his chest, trails a hand down to his belly. He's just staring at Bane, taking in each scar, touching Bane's muscles, and Bane finds himself staring, too. The thought occurs to him that he and John have never done this before—just taken in each other's bodies like this. Their trysts in the pit took place in the dark, under the covers for warmth, but now they can look at their leisure. John is lean and slim and _beautiful_. His flesh is creamy pale, not bruised and marked like Bane's; scarred, but not half as heavily as Bane is.

He wants to hide his scars, but John is already tracing the worst of them, his hands trailing up and down Bane's body.

“Jesus, you're huge,” he breathes. “Bigger every time I see you.”

Bane trains perhaps harder than anyone else at the temple except Barsad; he has nothing else to do. He didn't even notice the change to his muscles until the first time John had visited him and his mouth had fallen open. He _is_ big—bigger than most of the other men—but rather than flinch from him, John rests a hand on Bane's stomach and gazes up at him.

“You must be the strongest guy in the League,” he says.

“Strong enough to protect my beloved,” Bane replies. John's eyes soften.

“Can I take this off?” His fingers brush over the mask.

Bane hesitates. Then he bows his head and allows John to work the clasps and free him from the confining muzzle. John puts the mask aside and returns to Bane, staring into his face, and again Bane feels the urge to hide. He stays where he is. John's fingers brush his mouth.

“Christ,” John mutters, and then he lifts himself on tiptoe and presses his mouth to Bane's.

It's a chaste kiss, at first. Not sure what to do with his hands, Bane rests one at John's hip and the other clasps John's elbow, keeping him close. John isn't going anywhere, though. He moves even closer, until their bodies are pressed together under the spray of water. Bane's jaw is beginning to hurt but he can't tear himself away from John's mouth. He's missed this so much.

Distantly, through the fog in his head, he comes to realize that John is rocking against his thigh, groaning softly into Bane's mouth.

“John?”

John pulls off, licks his lips. “Come on,” he says.

He leaves the shower, towels himself off quickly, hands the towel to Bane and lets him do the same. While Bane is drying, John slips back into the bedroom. Bane follows him and finds him rummaging through the drawer in his bedside table.

“Here.” John pulls a couple of items out and gets on the bed. Bane follows without thinking. In the back of his mind he's conscious that his mask has been abandoned in the bathroom and he wants it, needs it, can already feel a slow burn in the base of his spine, but John's eyes fix him in place.

John is fumbling with one of the items: a bottle.

“This works a little better than grease,” he says, and Bane feels cool liquid on his fingers, slick and smooth, not sticky and tacky like the grease they'd used in the pit. Understanding, he pushes John's leg aside and reaches; but John jerks away from him.

“Sorry.” He's breathing hard like a frightened animal, though his expression is one of grave determination. “Go slow, okay.”

“Yes,” Bane says, and he starts with one finger, pushing in before he realizes that John might expect him to go even slower than that. He stops when John shudders, but when no instructions come, Bane slowly rotates his finger and slides it all the way in. John is hot inside, opening easily, and Bane remembers what he'd been doing in the shower. He pushes a second finger in and John's nails scrape over his forearm, seeking something to cling to. Then he's arching up, kissing Bane again.

Bane is gasping soon. John breaks their kiss, asks “Are you in pain?” and Bane lies “No,” because he's terrified John will want to stop if he says yes.

They both relax in degrees while Bane strokes him open, touching each other the way they haven't dared since they were in the pit together. They've had a few trysts at the temple; John has sucked him, stroked him if he woke up and found Bane aching hard against him. But they haven't done this. They haven't been close like this, kissing and needing and rocking against each other. The thrill is enough to drown any pain.

“That's—enough,” John says suddenly, many minutes later, breaking another kiss; Bane's fingers have long stilled inside him. John squirms away and Bane's hand comes away, his breath catching, but John isn't going anywhere. He's grabbed that other mystery item, a square packet, and he's tearing it open and withdrawing a piece of plastic which he brings between Bane's legs. Bane stiffens and jerks back.

“Hey, it's okay,” John says, a little impatiently, and Bane forces himself to be very still when John touches him. The thing is a sleeve that unrolls down the length of Bane's cock, confining him, tight at the bottom where it's wrapped around him. He squirms away when John lets go, leaving it there.

“John ...”

“It's okay,” John repeats. His hand is slick: he rubs it up and down Bane's covered length, and Bane bucks into his fist automatically. “It's a condom, Bane, it's just cleaner like this.”

He's left space at the tip—to catch emissions, Bane realizes. He doesn't want Bane to finish inside him. No—he doesn't want Bane to claim him. It makes sense, it does, but— “I want to touch you,” Bane says dumbly.

“So touch,” John says, lying back again.

This is the normal way of doing things, Bane decides, and he hates it as much as he hates everything else in the normal world. But it's John's world, after all, and Bane needs to learn how to live in it. John pulls him down, kissing him, and it chases away another flare of hot pain in Bane's back, makes him forget the restricting feeling between his legs. He parts his lips for John obediently, sighing. Up here, John is in charge. Bane has no right to claim him.

John is guiding him forward, he realizes. He wraps an arm under John's hips, lifting him, and John is gripping him, guiding him in. Bane's heart stutters and just about stops when he feels the exquisitely tight clench of John, the sudden give as John's body lets him in. He doesn't dare look at John's face—he knows he'll see pain there, no matter how slowly he pushes in. It doesn't feel the same, though, not like it used to—he's too aware of the layer between them, and he stops halfway in, his jaw clenched painfully.

“John—I want—”

“Keep going.” John's voice hitches.

“But I can't feel you—”

John sounds more normal when he answers. “For God's sake, Bane.” Then: “Okay, pull out.”

Bane is torn: torn between the impulse to fuck all the way into that delicious heat, or to obey and see to the uncomfortable restriction at the base of his cock. Finally John pushes him off, and Bane slides out, and John's fingers are working quickly.

“Sorry—shit. Wasn't even the right size, was it? And the clerk gave me such a weird look when I bought these windsocks—okay, okay.” John casts the thing aside and flops down, pulling his knees up and to the sides. “Just do it, I don't care.”

Gratefully, Bane starts over. He presses in and this time he feels the sweetness, the wetness of John, the velvety clutch of him all around Bane's length when he sinks it in. He's gasping with relief as well as pain now, and John laughs, stroking his shoulders.

“Sorry, it's just—like putting socks on a dog, huh? I had to try, though ...”

John has never laughed during sex before. Bane loves that sound, breathy and hitching and not like his normal voice because he is so full of Bane, because they're wrapped up together and Bane's heart is pounding so hard that he can't answer. John rubs his hands over Bane's back, skirting away from the surgical scar, and Bane finds the strength to start rocking into him, perhaps not as vigorously as he used to. John works his hips, meeting him halfway.

He's afraid he'll go off too soon, before John does, but the pain provides just enough of a distraction. His lower back is cramping; it's seeping into his thighs. Before long he can't even focus on the pleasure, or on John's kisses: his eyes are wet and he is genuinely afraid that he can't keep going. His muscles are starting to lock. He ducks his head, mouths mindlessly at John's neck and chest so that he won't see.

John strokes the back of his head, calming him slightly. “You need the mask?”

“No,” Bane lies again.

John sighs. “Roll over.”

He pushes and shoves at Bane, until Bane is on his back and John is perched on top of him, guiding Bane's cock back to his entrance. This has always been Bane's favourite thing: to watch John slide himself onto Bane's cock, to see how his face twists in pleasure-pain when he swivels his hips and finds the right spot. He rocks himself up and down, unwittingly putting on a most sensual show, and on his back Bane can forget about the pain for a moment. He grips John's hips and guides him up and back down, encourages him to wriggle until he finds that spot again, and mercilessly pulls John onto him over and over once they've found it. John is making sounds, actually crying out—he had to be quiet in the pit, in Bane's cell, but when Bane keeps hitting his sensitive spot he gasps and cries and throws his head back, fucking himself down harder and harder.

His cock is straining up toward his stomach. Bane remembers it, touches it, and John shudders and comes just like that, in violent spurts that streak their way across Bane's stomach. He squeezes _hard_ against Bane, and the sensation swallows up the pain altogether. Bane comes ferociously, his hands at John's hips again to hold him there, with his cock as deep inside John as it possibly can be, so that his claim will stay there as long as possible.

“Bane ... Bane,” John is saying patiently when Bane blinks his eyes open again, breathing hard. John is prying at his fingers. Bane lets go at once, leaving white finger marks around John's hips that he knows will bruise.

“I'm sorry,” he says, appalled.

“Don't be.” And John leans down and kisses him one more time: a deep, slow, somehow passionate kiss that touches Bane more deeply than any wound.

One last peck, and then John is moving away, working Bane's softening cock out of himself. He pads naked to the bathroom and returns with a towel and the mask. Bane allows him to strap the mask back on and do up all its buckles: as soon as he is breathing in medicated gas once more, he lets his eyes fall shut in relief and concentrates on deep breathing while John wipes them both perfunctorily with the towel.

When they are clean, John pulls a sheet over them both and he lies down on Bane the way he used to, back in the pit, the way they fit together so nicely: between Bane's legs, with his head and folded arms resting on Bane's torso.

“You don't have to push yourself like that for me,” John murmurs.

“I have been waiting to kiss you since the day you left the pit, John,” Bane says. “It was worth every second.”

 

*  
The two days that follow are better than any day they spent in the pit. John stays in the apartment with Bane and they relax in each other's company. They talk, openly now; Bane about how things are really going at the temple, and John about work and how he can't relate to his male colleagues at all and still sees a therapist about his anxiety and nightmares. Most of these conversations take place in bed. When Bane wants to touch, John yields to him gladly.

John enters the bedroom at one point to find Bane reading off the bottle of lubricant. “This is for—sex,” Bane says, showing him. For anal sex, the bottle says, which he supposes is what they're doing.

“Yeah, it is,” John says, raising his eyebrows. “That's why I bought it.”

Bane is perplexed. “But Ra's told me that was banned in most places ...”

He trails off when John just looks at him, frowning. In uncivilized places, like the pit, Bane can believe that this sort of thing goes on; but in Gotham, with all its rules? He can't believe anyone would produce and sell the means for men to have sex with each other.

“It's allowed,” John says simply.

John is very sure of himself, Bane notes. Not like he ever was in prison. It's easy for Bane to wait for cues from him, even to let John take command, since Bane is so far removed from his element. There's no power dynamic here, so he lets John call the shots, and John is fast to show him how very little he cares even if their coupling _is_ illegal here. He keeps taking Bane's mask off to kiss him, but only for short periods, and he always puts it back on for Bane.

Bane might miss his kisses most of all. He goes to the airport on the last day with the taste of John still on his lips.

“Give Talia a hug for me,” John says, when they reach the point where they have to part. “Give Barsad one too, tell me what he does.”

“I will,” Bane promises.

John sighs, and steps forward into a hug. He holds on so tight that Bane wonders if he doesn't want to let go; but then he does, looking at the wall rather than at Bane.

“Tell Ra's I said thanks for buying your plane ticket.”

Bane huffs softly. “I think he hoped I would stay here.”

John doesn't say anything. Bane notices, to his horror, that John's mouth trembles slightly.

“ _Habibi_ —”

“Don't say it.”

Bane thumbs his lower lip. “If you asked me to stay, I would.”

“I'd never ask you that,” John says, thrusting his hands into his pockets and hunching his shoulders. Half of Bane is relieved. “If you really hate it there, and I don't think you do, 'cause you've got Talia, but if you really do, of course you can stay. But you'd never be happy here. I know that.”

Bane thinks about it, really thinks, and he knows that John is right. It's a bitter pill to swallow. How could he leave Talia, besides?

“Come here, big guy,” John says finally; and he leans in to press a kiss to the corner of Bane's eye. Bane rumbles. “Have a good flight back. I'll write letters. And I'll come and visit you as soon as I can.”

“Soon,” Bane says, and John repeats: “As soon as I can.”

But that isn't soon enough.


End file.
